Body found at base of West Broadway apartment garbage chute 'very unnerving,' residents say

Residents of a Manitoba Housing apartment complex in West Broadway are struggling to make sense of a grim discovery at the bottom of a garbage chute last week.

A young man was found in the main floor trash bin at the base of a garbage chute in a Young Street apartment complex in Winnipeg on Dec. 10. Police consider the death suspicious.

"It's very unnerving," said Chantal Pilon, who lives in the Manitoba Housing apartment.

"Just not knowing, it's very perturbing, because you want some answers. This is your community, this is your safe space, this is your home, and we have children."

Pilon said she arrived home that day to see numerous police cruisers outside and officers entering the stairwell beside her suite.

"It was pretty scary," said Pilon's boyfriend, Paul Dromberg. "They never told us what was going on."

Pilon told an officer who knocked on her door that she hadn't seen or heard anything suspicious in the days prior.

"Apparently the man had been in the dumpster since Friday night," Pilon said. "It's just been incredibly confusing. I can't seem to get answers from anybody."

It's very … unsettling just to not know who it was or what happened.- Chantal Pilon

She said police explained the body was found in the main floor garbage below the chute. The bin is behind locked doors and is only accessible to building maintenance and garbage pickup personnel, Pilon said.

 "Unfortunately that body probably went down the garbage chute," she said.

Pilon said she told police that people like to squat in the apartment stairwells to escape the cold in the winter and can get into the building easily. The building can be noisy from people partying or coming in and out, Pilon said.

She doesn't know whether or not the person lived in the building.

"It's very … unsettling just to not know who it was or what happened," she said.

Police tape was still up at the 10th floor garbage chute on Monday, Pilon said, and residents aren't allowed to use the garbage chutes. The hole is about the size of an extra-large pizza box, she said.

Pilon said parents tried to shield children from seeing or knowing what happened, but "it's just everywhere."

It used to be Pilon's nine-year-old daughter's responsibility to take the garbage out, but that won't happen anymore after what happened.

"I was scared that she was going to go to school next day and they were all going to play telephone, and it was going to end up being a horrific story by the time she got home," Pilon said.

"And of course it was. By the time she got home it was three times worse."

Dromberg said he and others are still reeling from the death and want answers.

"A lot of the people in the building are pretty scared, because there's a lot of kids in the building," he said.

Police say they'll continue to investigate while awaiting autopsy results to determine how the man died.